'Christmas Story' Celebrates 25 Years

Kristol Calls On Bush To Pardon Torturers And Wiretappers

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A Conservative Looks At The Bail-Outs

The Bush/Obama approach may keep us from experiencing another Great Depression, at least for now. But is it just postponing the inevitable great crash? Pat Buchanan seems to think so.

Socialist Republic
By Patrick J. Buchanan

...A family man in America's condition, awash in debt, spending more than he makes, would cut back consumption, find a second job and get out of debt. Or declare bankruptcy, accept the shame and humiliation, change his wastrel ways and start anew.

Is it different for a nation?

Yet we seem to believe we can borrow and spend our way out of a swamp of unpayable debt into which borrowing and spending have plunged us...

Click here to continue reading Pat Buchanan's column

Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death - NYTimes.com

Nov 29, 2008 ... A crush of shoppers tore down the front doors and thronged into a store in suburban New York, killing a temporary employee.
www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/business/29walmart.html?_r=1 - 20 hours ago -

This gives new meaning to "Black Friday." Greed and materialism seem to be motivating many people more than concern for their fellow human beings. Any store that sets up a situation that encourages trampling other people ought to be sued.

Don't pardon these turkeys, Mr. President

Rosa Brooks: Let officials who may have committed crimes in the name of the 'war on terror' face justice.

Consciousness of a Conservative
By Ted Rall - November 19, 2008
A philosophy without a party

...In the United States, conservatism is a philosophy without a party. Take Ronald Reagan, considered the patron saint of late 20th century conservatism. Coupled with extravagant military spending, Reagan's tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations increased the national debt from $700 billion to $3 trillion, transforming the United States into the world's biggest debtor nation. Under Reagan, William Voegeli wrote in the Los Angeles Times in 2007, "government did nothing but expand. In 1981, the federal government spent $678 billion; in 1989 it spent $1.144 trillion. Factoring out inflation, that was an increase of 19 percent in real spending. Republicans never expected that Reagan would leave office with a 'federal establishment' one-fifth larger than when he arrived."

George W. Bush campaigned as a "compassionate conservative," but conservatism was as absent from his governance as compassion was. He has increased the federal deficit from $3.3 to $5.9 trillion. Add in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—estimated at $2.4 trillion as of 2007—and he will have put the country a staggering $5 trillion deeper into the hole. He hired 180,000 federal employees for a new Cabinet-level department, Homeland Security, all to make you take off your shoes at the airport.

Conservative? Not these guys...

Antiabortion Movement Divided As Some Groups Shift Focus From Banning Abortion To Reducing Procedures
Medical News Today

Cheney and Gonzales Indicted By Grand Jury

By Faiz Shakir, Think Progress A South Texas grand jury has returned multi-count indictments against Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Read more »

Bill Ayers talks back

Sarah Palin called him a terrorist, Barack Obama called him an acquaintance. A Salon editor who knew Ayers back when talks to the ex-Weather Underground member turned Republican talking point.

By Walter Shapiro Nov 17, 2008

Smart Defense
Katrina vanden Heuvel | Rep. Barney Frank is leading the charge to end the Pentagon's weapons spending spree. Is anybody listening?

Billy and the Neo-cons won't go away

Kristol Floats Revived ‘Project For A New American Century’ To Support Neocons In The Wilderness»

In 1997, Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan co-founded the Project for a New American Century, a neoconservative organization meant “to promote American global leadership” through “military strength and moral clarity.” The organization, whose statement of principles was signed by right-wing luminaries such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, is largely credited with putting America on the path to a preventative invasion of Iraq.

In an interview with Hugh Hewitt yesterday, Kristol said that he would like to set up a similar organization to operate during an Obama presidency:

Iraqi cabinet approves security agreement with firm 2011 withdrawal deadline.

After nearly one year of negotiations, the Iraqi cabinet voted “overwhelmingly” Sunday to approve a security agreement requiring “coalition forces to withdraw from Iraqi cities and towns by the summer of 2009 and from the country by the end of 2011,” the New York Times reports. “An earlier version had language giving some flexibility to that deadline…but the Iraqis managed to have the deadline set in stone, a significant negotiating victory.” Earlier this month, the Times reported that Barack Obama’s victory spurred the Iraqi political process toward finalizing a withdrawal agreement. In the words of one Iraqi politician:

“Before, the Iraqis were thinking that if they sign the pact, there will be no respect for the schedule of troop withdrawal by Dec. 31, 2011,” said Hadi al-Ameri, a powerful member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a major Shiite party. “If Republicans were still there, there would be no respect for this timetable. This is a positive step to have the same theory about the timetable as Mr. Obama.” http://thinkprogress.org/index.php

So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits--and the President--Failed on Iraq
by Greg Mitchell

Born in the U.S.A.

FactCheck.org Updated: November 1, 2008

The truth about Obama's birth certificate.

Summary

In June, the Obama campaign released a digitally scanned image of his birth certificate to quell speculative charges that he might not be a natural-born citizen. But the image prompted more blog-based skepticism about the document's authenticity. And recently, author Jerome Corsi, whose book attacks Obama, said in a TV interview that the birth certificate the campaign has is "fake."

We beg to differ. FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.

Update, Nov. 1: The director of Hawaii’s Department of Health confirmed Oct. 31 that Obama was born in Honolulu.

Analysis

Update Nov. 1: The Associated Press quoted Chiyome Fukino as saying that both she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate.

Fukino also was quoted by several other news organizations. The Honolulu Advertiser quoted Fukino as saying the agency had been bombarded by requests, and that the registrar of statistics had even been called in at home in the middle of the night.

Honolulu Advertiser, Nov. 1 2008: "This has gotten ridiculous," state health director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said yesterday. "There are plenty of other, important things to focus on, like the economy, taxes, energy." . . . Will this be enough to quiet the doubters? "I hope so," Fukino said. "We need to get some work done."

Fukino said she has “personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures." http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are (2:39)

Obama's plans for probing Bush torture
President Bush could pardon officials involved in brutal interrogations -- but he may also face a sweeping investigation under the new president.
By Mark Benjamin

E.J. Dionne on the Culture Wars
"Abortion Is the Right Issue for Starting the Healing" -- Obama’s most urgent task is to repair an ailing economy. But one of his most important promises was to end the cultural and religious wars that have disfigured politics for four decades.

Marie Cocco on Bush's Regrets
"This Is What He’s Sorry About?" -- It was nothing Bush did—no decision he made, no policy he pursued, no faith that he placed in ideological dogma—that he finds regrettable. Bush told a cable network, “I regret saying some things I shouldn’t have said” over the course of eight tumultuous years.

Scott Ritter on Obama’s Approach to Iran
"With Iran, Obama Needs More Carrot, Less Stick" -- Now that the presidential election has liberated Barack Obama from the need to play to the fickle whim of domestic politics, he should put away the saber and take a more enlightened approach to Iran.

Losing It on TV
Ruby Gettinger, a Sunday school teacher in Georgia who weighed 700 pounds, battles her obesity—and leans on God—on national television.
Interview by Rose Pacatte

Obama's Fascinating Interview with Cathleen Falsani

Steve Waldman

The most detailed and fascinating explication of Barack Obama's faith came in a 2004 interview he gave Chicago Sun-Times columnist Cathleen Falsani when he was running for U.S. Senate in Illinois. The column she wrote about the interview has been quoted and misquoted many times over, but she'd never before published the full transcript in a major publication...

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctpolitics/2008/11/obamas_fascinat.html

It is apparent that Barack Obama holds to a fairly liberal version of Christianity. But he seems to be very honest and transparent about his beliefs, and to have a sincere humility about his views. Hopefully he will be open to others, even to evangelicals, to reason with us.

"Neocons Plot to Co-Opt Obama"
The newly elected president is a foreign policy novice and will find himself under great pressure to follow Middle Eastern and China and Russia policies inherited from George Bush, even though these are what Barack Obama was elected to change or terminate. William Pfaff

How wrong they were
"He cannot win," and other chestnuts. Remembering an election season full of fabulously wrongheaded predictions.

'Change Has Come to America'

NATION ELECTS FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT
McCain & Palin fall short on big night for Democrats

• President-elect speaks to cheering crowd
• Video: 'We've come to the end,' McCain says
• Dems pick up multiple seats in Senate
• Republicans lose ground in House races

Watch MSNBC TV live | Popular vote count

Watch the acceptance speech

Juan Williams Tears Up: "This Is America At Its Grandest" (VIDEO)

Obama Wins: Why All Americans Have a Reason to Celebrate

Chicago Tribune/Nuccio DiNuzzo

Arianna Huffington: Even if your candidate didn't win tonight, you have reason to celebrate. We all do. Barack Obama's impressive victory says a lot about America. Because tonight voters decided that they didn't want to look back. They wanted to step into the future. And they turned out in unprecedented numbers to make sure that no amount of scrubbed rolls, malfunctioning machines, endless lines, or polling places running out of ballots would block the way. The history of America is studded with great breakthroughs followed by decades of consolidation and occasional regression. Tonight's victory proclaims the end of the dark years of the Bush regression. It's time for another American breakthrough. Click here to read more.